Glad to see you back, Barbara. On the packing debris, check if they have a recycling program - you may be able to put the cardboard boxes out a bit at a time in the card and paper recycling. The other thing to check is if they have any household cleanup days included in the annual allowance - Mountain View has a system where each year there's a scheduled spring cleanup day, plus you can have a couple of pickups by appointment of large collections of rubbish. I suspect they've found that if they don't offer "springcleaning" services, the stuff just gets fly-tipped. There are *lots* of canyons around here with the most amazing collection of household items and old cars at the bottom.

Chris -- I don't know the precise size, but it's a little bit bigger than those 33-gallon-size Glad Lawn Bags; I can squeeze in a couple of smaller bags as well.

Julia -- They do have recycling here, but they pick up only every other week. And all the recylced material must fit into a recycle bin that's the same size as the garbage container. That means all the boxes would have to be cut up to fit in the bin. With the number of boxes I have, cutting them up would be my life for the next month. Two months. I'm just going to hire someone to haul them away.

Andrew -- The word "city" is only a legal term in this connection. Citrus Heights was originally a Sacramento suburb, little more than a bedroom community. But five years ago the residents were fed up with paying high taxes to Sacramento and getting virtually nothing in return, so they voted to incorporate (thus the "city"). The consensus seems to be that the quality of life improved considerably since then: clean, well-maintained streets, a separate police force, businesses moving in, etc. It's still a far cry from what I consider "urban" -- and I suspect the residents want to keep it that way.

Originally posted by Barbara: The consensus seems to be that the quality of life improved considerably since then

Except for the garbage collection, of course

In the Roanoke area we have the same thing with the single, rather large container.....where I am we get picked up by a franchisee or something and can put out ANYTHING in bags, boxes, etc, and they'll take it.

Recycling, because we have so many separately incorporated places, varies but there are three points where you can take your recyclables, two of them fairly near me. One of these takes plastics, the other takes "plain" and "office" paper and cardboard, so I visit one of them one week, the other the next....both take newspapers, glass and cans.

For instance, we get a container for trash, picked up once a week, and a shorter container for recycles, picked up every two weeks. Both are those bins-on-wheels. In addition, larger stuff is picked up every week, as well. But leaves must be put in clear lawn bags--in the next city over, leaves can just be piled in the street, and the city comes along and vacuums it up.

I have about ten trees on this lot. You can imagine what my biggest problem is!

It's been nearly 30 years since we moved, and I can't begin to comprehend what will be involved--and yet, we plan to leave this house next year. I have no idea what we will do with all the things we have amassed and can't take...

Yes, that's the problem; going through the accumulation of a lifetime and deciding what goes, what stays. Pete, if you know you'll be moving next year, best to start the weeding-out right now. Doing it all at once can introduce a distinct note of panic into one's life.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kay: Except for the garbage collection, of course

Except that. But since that's a county law, no mere city (real or otherwise) can do anything about it.

I have a new teakettle. It doesn't whistle; it hums. First one note, then a lower one, and then both together -- a chord. Neat.

Originally posted by Barbara:Yes, that's the problem; going through the accumulation of a lifetime and deciding what goes, what stays. Pete, if you know you'll be moving next year, best to start the weeding-out right now. Doing it all at once can introduce a distinct note of panic into one's life.

Having done this myself not so long ago, I will second the advice. Further complicated for me by the fact that some of the stuff was going to the US, and some of it was going into storage in family attics (or family houses, in the case of the consumer electronics). I had a row of archive boxes lined up on the landing for several weeks - every so often there'd be a session of "This will be packed for overseas, this will be packed for the UK, this will be thrown out when I leave, this should have been thrown out two moves ago and it's going *now*." And cataloguing of things for the insurance, which turned out to be a good thing, because I did need to make a claim for water damage.